A round-up of sports results from Week 9 of the Michaelmas Term by Mr Lawes, Director of Sport.

Football

1xt XI vs Downside - lost

Downside opened the scoring early after a defensive mistake. Harry equalized with a header before Downside re-took the lead thanks to a penalty. At 2-1 down MA were looking increasingly confident and playing well. However a red card changed the momentum and Downside made the extra player count to win 6-1. A shame as at times we produced our best football of the season. 'Player of the match': Arthur D.

Hockey

U16 vs Bournemouth Collegiate and Clayesmore

The under 16s had two fantastic fixtures last week. It started with a fine 6-0 win over Bournemouth Collegiate. Special mentions for that match go to Ruby for her superb hat trick, Amelie for her strong performance, Leila for her tackles and Ava for her all-round play. They then played their best ever match against Clayesmore. The girls worked hard throughout and never gave up. They worked as a team and supported each other. Felicity had a good match in goal. Unfortunately we conceded two late goals but the girls should be very proud of their performances.

1st vs Clayesmore - lost

A hard fought game that could have gone either way. A poor first half from MA meant that we were 2-0 down at the break. Some encouraging words saw the Abbey spring back into life and we quickly scored a goal. With 10 minutes to go, we pinned Clayesmore into their half creating plenty of scoring opportunities but couldn't quite find the equaliser. A very good game, but not our best performance.

U14s vs Clayesmore - lost

The U14s were missing 4 of their starting 11. A number of girls made their first appearance of the season. The girls gave it everything and should be very proud of their performance. They defended with determination. Eve did really well in goal and Zara was all over the pitch. Patricia also had her best game of the season. It is a shame that we didn’t have our strongest team as this was a game that we could have won.

Rugby

U14s vs Gillingham - lost

A really tight game that bristled with excitement and tension from start to finish. Milton Abbey went ahead in the first half following strong inroads from our power runners Isaac, Elliot, Oliver S and James C. James W kicked a difficult conversion that kept our noses in front, however our inability to stay disciplined in defence allowed the opposition to score three tries to our two, and run out winners by 3 points.

U15 vs Gillingham - lost

This was a one sided match with Gillingham running out fairly easy winners. However the Milton Abbey boys put in another brave performance with some outstanding tackling against some talented Bath Academy players.

U16 vs Gillingham - lost

The first half ended with both teams on a try each and the teams very evenly matched. MA managed to cross the line for a second try but Gillingham finished the match strong and eventually scored twice to win the match. 'Player of the match' was Dan E for an outstanding performance all round.

1st XI – Rencomb Tournament

The 1st XI played in the Rencmb tournament on Sunday. In the first of our three group matches we faced St Davids College from Wales. The game was end to end but as the matches were only 10 minutes long it ended 0-0. Shebbear then used their greater size and strength to edge out a 12-0 victory in our second match. In our third group game was against Ewell Castle of Surrey. The game was once again extremely tight and exciting but again ended 0-0 meaning they went into the fifth to eighth place play-offs. We produced a great display against Lucton College with tries from Sam, Gabriel, Angus and Ben sealing the victory. St David’s then beat us meaning that we finished sixth overall.